The Art of Secrets Read Online Free Page B

that’s how long I’ve been teaching here. More than your age, some of you. The little turds we deal with now? Twenty-five years ago, I taught their little-turd parents. When I was a student at Highsmith, I sat in desks next to their little-turd grandparents.
    In lots of cases, the problem you observe with a student is the same problem I have observed with generations of that family. Behavior problems, laziness, cheating, sexual acting-out—these can be
family traits
, see? And no matter what color their skin, or what religion they claim to profess, rich kids, poor kids, smart kids and the dumb ones, god bless ’em, one thing they have in common is that they’re all exactly like their parents. It’s the apples-and-trees thing, you got me?
    Hell, we see it on report-card nights. That moment when we meet a loco parent and think,
Ah-HA, well THIS explains everything!
    And knowing this, see, makes it hard to sit here and listen to you guys still speculating about what may have happened at the Khans’ apartment. Who cares
how
it happened? A family lost a home. Can’t we leave it at that?
    All that matters to me is, Saba Khan’s a good kid. Honestly that’s why I bawled so hard after the fire. It wasn’t like this awful thing happened to some stuck-up little princess. No, it happened to one of the truly
nice
ones. Doesn’t seem fair, see? Every time I’m with poor Saba, it’s all I can do to stop from hugging the stuffing out of her.
    Maybe her situation gets to me because we’ve spent time together. Two years on my tennis team. Not chatty, but respectful. She works at her game. The kid doesn’t even have a racket of her own. Takes one from the bucket in the gym office. Always the same one. Nothing special about the thing, but everyone knows the pink Wilson hybrid goes to Saba.
    Plus, her parents never miss a match. Gotta love that support. You see it with these first-generation families.
    The Spoon kids are impressive, too. I only met the mother once, at one of the summer registration nights. She sort of marched into the gym—you know the type—straight from work, lipstick and pearls, serious shoes. Pretty conservative, I was guessing, or at least works in that environment. She picked up her kids’ schedules like she was doing me a favor. All business, no small talk. Still, she had a spark about her, a
spark
, like she can get things done.
    So I’m not surprised that her kids are pretty terrific. They’ve got that spark, too. They stand out without even trying—blond hair, what they call “all American” looks.Kevin, the senior, to give him credit, the kid’s an excellent athlete. He knows how to move the ball down the court. And he’s
smart
, see? Some kids, you’ve got to remind them, every practice, what their strengths and weaknesses are. Steve Davinski, for example. He’s a giant, one of my starters. He can practically dunk the ball without lifting his arms. But he can only see what’s in front of him; he can only see the
now.
    Kevin Spoon, on the other hand—he understands cause and effect. I can count on him to see an opportunity on the court
before the opportunity exists
. Remarkable kid. Face it, not many boys can transfer in senior year and make the varsity team. Coaches spend a couple of seasons building this well-oiled machine. You add a new element like Kevin Spoon and it’s a risk. Wild card. But Kevin showed up for conditioning last month, ready to show me what he could do. I found out later he was varsity at the last two schools he attended, too. Four different schools, three varsity teams. See, that’s impressive.
    That’s not just talent, it’s determination. Maybe all that moving around has taught him to look way far ahead. He knows that winning one game doesn’t really matter. What matters is the game he’ll be playing next year. If a kid like Kevin has vision, it can